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Fairway Surveillance Tape Suggests UES "Shoplift Mom" Didn't "Forget" To Pay
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 9, 2011
Modified Aug 9, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 9, 2011
Modified Aug 9, 2011
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As the Fairway "shoplifting mom" scandal enters day two, new surveillance footage seems to contradict the woman's claim that she simply "forgot" to pay for beer, milk, and Red Bull stashed under her child's stroller. In exclusive scoop yesterday, the Post broke the shocking story of Upper East Side mom Elissa Drassinower, who has been banished from Fairway for life after she got caught leaving the East 86th Street location with $15 worth of unpaid beverages under the stroller. She insists it was an oversight, but let's let Fairway CEO Howie Glickberg talk us through the videotape:
As Glickberg points out in the Zapruder tape, Drassinower reaches into her stroller to retrieve her purse, and then puts the groceries she did purchase directly on top of the merchandise she didn't pay for. "She would have to be pretty oblivious to not see what she did," Glickberg tells the Post. "The security video clearly shows that she sees the products after she's checked out." Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
Drassinower swears she's just a patsy, and her publicity campaign seems intended to shame Fairway into ending her exile. If so, it's almost certainly backfired. Glickberg says he would have considered showing Drassinower mercy if she hadn't taken such an adversarial approach. "She threatened to go to the press and get a lawyer," Glickberg tells WPIX, "We had to protect ourselves. Had she called and said it was all a mistake, we could have worked it out."
Speaking to the Post, Glickman further explains that Fairway has banned "several hundred" customers for shoplifting and, "it doesn't matter if "somebody is shoplifting intentionally or no... We cannot discriminate and say one person can't come back and the next person can come back." Whoa, whoa, whoa—a uniform set of rules that apply to everybody? Does Glickman realize where his store is located? Is this the Upper East Side, or SOVIET RUSSIA?
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Elissa Drassinower
Fairway
shoplifting
shoplifting mom
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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